Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore, and key figure in the development of personal computing, died late Sunday at 83.

Mr. Tramiel’s company, Commodore Business Machines, helped popularize the personal computer, just as the company he later purchased — Atari — helped push video gaming into the mainstream by making the devices affordable for the masses.

“Jack Tramiel was an immense influence in the consumer electronics and computing industries. A name once uttered in the same vein as Steve Jobs is today, his journey from concentration camp survivor to captain of industry is the stuff of legends,” said Martin Goldberg, a writer working on a book about the Atari brand, first to Forbes.

“His legacy are the generations upon generations of computer scientists, engineers, and gamers who had their first exposure to high technology because of his affordable computers – ‘for the masses and not the classes.”